Cable Revs Broadband Engine

In 2011, cable operators stepped on the gas— asserting their broadband superiority over telco rivals andsprinting ahead to make watching TV across a multitude ofscreens a reality.

DOCSIS flexes its muscles: Does cable need fi ber to thehome? Pshaw.

MSOs this year broadly launchedsome of the fastest residential Internetservices in America and increasedspeeds on their existingtiers, using good old coaxial cable.

Comcast, for one, now offers 105Megabit-per-second downstreamservice to more than 40 millionU.S. homes. At the Cable Show inChicago this summer, CEO BrianRoberts demonstrated the industry’sability to hit 1-Gigabit speedsover existing plant with DOCSIS 3.0gear.

Today, of course, cable’s ultra-fasttiers are pricey and mainly for show.But broadband traffic is rising 50%per year, even as price per downstreamchannel on cable-modemtermination systems is falling atroughly the same rate, Arris chairmanand CEO Bob Stanzione saidat SCTE’s Cable-Tec Expo this fall.

Each of the major CMTS vendors— Arris, Cisco Systems and MotorolaMobility — has doubled the densityof its platforms in the past year,“and that will just continue,” Stanzionesaid.

“Cable is indeed winning thebroadband wars,” Moffett wrote ina research note last week. “Cable’sphysical infrastructure is a bettermousetrap for broadband.”

Living the multiscreen dream: Cablevision Systems andTime Warner Cable moved fast to bring live TV to the iPad —too fast, in the opinion of some programmers.

Cable customers loved the option to watch TV on a secondscreen, but media companies, including Viacom, challengedthe MSOs’ rights to do so under their existing distributionagreements. One key issue: Nielsen doesn’t track viewing ontablets, a blind spot the ratings firm is hoping to resolve in 2012.

Pay TV services — including authenticated “TV Everywhere”content such as HBO Go — are also heading to Microsoft’sXbox 360, and a mélange of other devices other thanoperator-supplied set-tops.

“We want to be on screens that consumers want us to be on,”Sam Schwartz, president of Comcast Converged Products, saidat the CTAM in New York conference, adding that the MSOwants to extend VOD to game consoles from Sony and Nintendo,as well as connected TVs and devices like the Roku set-top.

Googlers become cable guys? In an unexpected move, Internetgiant Google this summer offered to write a $12.5 billioncheck to pick up cable-technology stalwart Motorola Mobility.The deal was driven by Google’s desire to own Motorola’s warchest of intellectual property, to ward off legal challenges to theAndroid smartphone operating system.

But the takeover bid prompted a wave of speculation aboutwhat, exactly, the company intends to do with set-tops and cablevideo systems. Will it try to use Motorola to bring a WebcentricGoogle TV platform to cable operators? Or will it leavethe business to its own devices?

Instead, the cable operatorswill promote Verizon Wirelessservices as part of their bundlesand by 2015 will have the optionto sell mobile services undertheir own brands. “We do notbelieve it is feasible to enter thewireless market as a freestandingnew entrant,” Time WarnerCable CEO Glenn Britt wrote inQ&A message sent to employeesabout the Verizon deal.

Cox Communications lastweek joined the club, announcingplans to sell spectrumlicenses to the carrier for$315 million and also enteringinto a marketing deal with VerizonWireless. That came afterthe MSO last month nixed itsown wireless services, providedthrough Sprint. .

CableLabs looks for a new boss: Heading into 2012, MSOexecutives are canvassing for candidates to step in for CEOPaul Liao, the former Panasonic chief technology officer whois leaving the consortium for personal reasons. In his brieftenure CableLabs, Liao, 68, did realize one of his originalideas: opening a San Francisco office to build a bridge to SiliconValley’s fast-paced and entrepreneurial culture.

“Whether the [next CEO] comes from inside the cableindustry or outside, being able to see what’s going to disruptthe cable industry is very, very important,” Liao saidin an October interview.